Getting Started in easyDITA

1. Sign in to easyDITA with the credentials provided to you. If you don't have an account, ask your account administrator to set one up for you.  

   

2. Once logged in, the first screen you'll see is the Dashboard interface. We're going to skip the Dashboard in this tutorial. Click Author to go to the Authoring interface.

3. In the Browse Tab, click the Content root folder and then click the Testing folder.

   

   Note: If there is no testing folder, create one by following step 4.
4. Before creating any topics, you need to create your own testing area for this tutorial. Click the New folder icon to create a new folder. This will be your personal testing space, so use your name as the folder name.

In your personal testing folder, you'll create your first concept topic.

1. In the Authoring interface, click Create New and select Default Concept.

2. In Title field , enter Introduction. The File name field will be automatically populated based on the Title field.

   

3. Click Create .

   Your new concept topic displays in the file listing.

4. With your first concept topic created, click More Options > Open to open the topic for editing.

   Tip: You can also double-click a file or hover over a file and click the Pencil icon open it.

   A new tab opens displaying the Introduction concept topic in the Topic Editor .

   

5. Type content into the topic.

   

6. You can access all sorts of functions by using the Topic Editor toolbar. Click on these areas to do the following:
   1. Add a list
   2. Add an image
   3. Add a table
   4. Insert an element from a list
   5. Remove an element
   6. Add a review comment
   Tip: You can use the Quick Action Menu to quickly perform an action. Press Cmd+Shift for Mac or Ctrl+Shift for Windows to access the menu, and then press the appropriate letter for the action you want to perform.

   For example, as a Mac user I would press Cmd+Shift+I to insert an element.

   

7. When you're done editing the topic, click Save and Close .

The process for creating a task topic is similar to creating a concept topic, so let's get to it.

1. In the Authoring interface, click Create New and select Default Task.

2. In the Title field, enter First Procedure.

   

3. Click Create & Edit to create your topic and open it in the Topic Editor .

   A new tab opens displaying the First Procedure task topic in the Topic Editor .

   The body of a Default Task topic has 3 major parts:

   1. Context

   2. Steps

   3. Result

   Note: Not all organizations will use a Context and Result. Consult your Information Architect for your organization's best practice.
4. Enter some content in the Steps.
5. You can add visuals to your steps to assist the reader. First, you need to insert an Information element to hold the image. Place your cursor in a step and click +info .

   An Information element is inserted below the step.

6. Click the Image icon. You can either navigate to and select an existing image or upload a new image.

   

7. At this point, if your image is too large you may want to resize it. Do the following:
   1. Click the image.
   2. Click Properties .
   3. In the Width field, enter 420px.

8. When you're done editing the topic, click Save and Close .

You created your first DITA topics. Now, you'll create a map to organize your topics into.

1. First, you need to create the file. In the Authoring interface, click Create New and select Default Map.

2. In the Title field, enter a map name.

   

3. Click Create & Edit to create and open the map for editing.  

   The Map Editor displays with your map in the Map Editor Pane.

4. Now that you've created a map, you're going to add to it the concept and task topics you created. To add the Introduction topic to the map, click and drag introduction.dita from the file listing to the Map Editor Pane.

   

   

5. Repeat step 4 to add first_procedure.dita to the map.
   Tip: If you drop a topic on top of another topic in the Map Editor Pane, it will add the topic as a child. This is how you can build hierarchy in a map.
6. Now that you're done editing the map, click Save .

Now that you have a simple map built, it's time to test out publishing to PDF using the DITA Open Toolkit.

1. Let's start by opening the Publishing interface. In the Map Editor Pane, click Publish . This is where you'll select a publishing engine.

   

2. You're going to use the DITA Open Toolkit to publish to PDF, so click DITA Open Toolkit.

   The Publish Through DITA Open Toolkit screen displays. Here you'll see past publishes of the map. But because this is a new map, there aren't any past publishes.

   

3. Click New Publish to open the New Publishing Job Interface and select the output format for your first publish.
4. Complete in the following fields:

   

   1. From the Available Publishing Scenarios list, select Basic 1.5.3.
   2. In the Description text box, enter a description. It will display once the publish is complete.
   3. In the Transtype drop-down menu, select PDF.
5. Start the publishing job by clicking Publish . 

   

6. Once the publishing job completes, click the description and then click Download .

   The PDF in the downloaded ZIP folder will be very plain if your organization hasn't done any work on output styling.

Upload images and DITA files to your Content Library to use in topics and maps.

1. In the Content Manager , navigate to the folder where you want to upload a file and click the Upload icon .

   The Select files to upload window displays and your current folder location is listed next to Select upload location .

   

2. Click Select files to upload .
3. Navigate to the file(s) you want to upload and click Open .

   The file(s) you selected are listed under Files to upload.

   

4. Click Upload .